Anyone Know How to Reach Dr. House?

Does anybody know how I can get in touch with Dr House?

Posted early 2009

I just spoke with my Endocrinologist.

Here’s how this works: the only part of the human body that stores iodine is thyroid tissue—or, if you no longer have a thyroid, thyroid cancer cells will absorb it. So, a week after I took the radioactive iodine, any place that still showed radioactivity had to be cancer. That’s why they ran the total body scan. Ideally, after a week, all the cancer would have been burned away.

The scan showed six “uptake” spots in my neck: three on the left side, one in the thyroid bed, and two on the right. The two on the right worry me most—because that’s the side where all the fat and lymph nodes were removed. Yet cancer still shows there. During the original surgery they found cancer in the lymph nodes, parathyroid, thyroid, and skeletal muscles. The thyroid bed is also risky; another surgery there could threaten my voice.

In December I had a modified neck dissection on the left side. “Modified” means they left the muscles intact—a full dissection removes all the neck muscles. I have no idea how I’d hold my head up if they’d done that.

For now, my Endo wants to give the radiation more time to work. In three to six months we’ll do more tests and decide what’s next. I’m not entirely comfortable with that plan, but I’ll discuss it face to face at my six-week follow-up in February.

Still, I’m glad they aren’t rushing into more treatment. I need time to heal. I’m doing better, but still need a nap every afternoon. I’m walking 2½ to 3 miles a day and trying to restart my diet, though my sense of taste is still off—nothing tastes right.

This break gives me time to meet with my neurological team. Oddly, I still think the neurological problems are more dangerous than the cancer. I’m having episodes of shortness of breath, new tremors in my left eyelid that make it hard to see, more vision changes, and increased drooling over the past two weeks.

Next week I’ll see the neurologists again and get the results of the tests from September. Hopefully they’ve figured out something—but it’s been over three years since I could smile, and I wonder if anyone ever will know why.

So… does anybody know how to reach Dr. House? Honestly, all my doctors tell me I’m “an interesting case.”

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